Showing papers on "Nomothetic and idiographic published in 2003"

The typological approach in child and family psychology: a review of theory, methods, and research.

Abstract: The purpose of this paper was to review the theoretical underpinnings, major concepts, and methods of the typological approach. It was argued that the typological approach offers a systematic, empirically rigorous and reliable way to synthesize the nomothetic variable-centered approach with the idiographic case-centered approach. Recent advances in cluster analysis validation make it a promising method for uncovering natural typologies. This paper also reviewed findings from personality and family studies that have revealed 3 prototypical personalities and parenting styles: Adjusted/Authoritative, Overcontrolled/Authoritarian, and Undercontrolled/Permissive. These prototypes are theorized to be synonymous with attractor basins in psychological state space. The connection between family types and personality structure as well as future directions of typological research were also discussed.

Hierarchical representation of motives in goal setting.

Abstract: The authors developed a framework for thinking about motives in goal setting. The reasons for choosing a particular goal are represented in a hierarchical network of motives. To uncover context-specific motives and their interconnections, the authors propose a procedure based on the elicitation of justifications for one's goal. The authors applied the procedure to the motivation of volunteering to join the Italian Army by officers (N = 151) and 3 groups of enlisted soldiers (Garibaldi Brigade, N = 141; Folgore Brigade, N = 144; and volunteers in training, N = 150). The resulting idiographic motives and linkages between motives were validated by regressing attitudes, intentions to reenlist, and commitment toward the army on motives and linkages between motives. A heuristic nomothetic summary of goals, arranged in an interconnected hierarchy, was derived.

Self-discrepancies: Measurement and Relation to Various Negative Affective States

Abstract: This study examined the validity of two methods for assessing self-discrepancies: an idiographic method (The Selves Questionnaire, SQ) and a nomothetic method (Adjective Rating List, ARL). It also tested several major hypotheses of self-discrepancy theory regarding the relations between self-discrepancies and emotional discomfort. SQ and ARL scores from 220 participants demonstrated moderate correlations between instruments and high intercorrelations between discrepancy scores within instruments. Self-discrepancy scores were related to negative emotional states, but the specificity of these relations was not demonstrated, nor did they make a substantial contribution to the prediction of negative emotional states after controlling for negative self-concept. Overall, these findings raise significant concerns about the relevance of self-discrepancies as measured by the SQ and ARL and fail to support the main contentions of self-discrepancy theory.

Idiodynamics in re Personality Theory and Psychoarchaeology

Abstract: Idiodynamics is the science of the idioverse. The idioverse consists of the population of events experienced by a single unique individual. This conception supersedes that of personality because the idioverse purports to be a more direct and objective formulation. The idioverse is understood, in large measure, by “markers” that are peculiar to the individual and are discovered through a study of the totality of the individual's expressed experience. Three types of norms afford these data for observation: the nomothetic, the demographic, and the idiodynamic. All are essential for an understanding of how the individual participates in the experience of the self and of others. A biogenic medium and a sociogenic medium overlap in the formulation of the idioverse, and these media overlap and converge to constitute a matrix that provides idiodynamic norms. Comprehension of the idioverse reveals the individual as a self-creative and dynamic process. Idiodynamics should be distinguished from the earlier idiographic approach to individuality. Psychoarchaeology is the reconstruction of biographical identities and/or sources. This methodology is well illustrated in Morton Prince's classic case of dissociation (Sally Beauchamp).

Ecological Kinds and Ecological Laws

Abstract: Ecologists typically invoke “law‐like” generalizations, ranging over “structural” and/or “functional” kinds, in order to explain generalizations about “historical” kinds (such as biological taxa)—rather than vice versa. This practice is justified, since structural and functional kinds tend to correlate better with important ecological phenomena than do historical kinds. I support these contentions with three recent case studies. In one sense, therefore, ecology is, and should be, more nomothetic, or law‐oriented, than idiographic, or historically oriented. This conclusion challenges several recent philosophical claims about the nature of ecological science.

Aggregated causal maps: an approach to elicit and aggregate the knowledge of multiple experts

Abstract: This paper presents a systematic procedure to elicit and aggregate the knowledge of multiple individual experts and represent it in the form of an Aggregated Causal Map (ACM). This procedure differs from existing methods in two ways. First, unlike other methods, this method does not rely on group interaction in eliciting knowledge of multiple experts, and, therefore, is not fraught with biases associated with group dynamics. Second, this method uses both the idiographic and nomothetic approaches while existing methods focus on nomothetic approaches to knowledge elicitation. We draw on the strengths of both approaches by using the idiographic approach to elicit and aggregate the knowledge of multiple experts and the nomothetic approach to validate the knowledge elicited. We illustrate the procedure by constructing the ACM of eight key decision makers about an enterprise system adoption decision.

Contextual Biography and the Evolving Systems Approach to Creativity

Abstract: This article describes why the author abandoned nomothetic methods in favor of the more idiographic focus of biography. The author outlines the advantages of contextual biography. In contextual biography, the psychological and existential dimension plays the role of an internal environment that interacts with the other contexts in which the subject evolves. The network of enterprises, a concept proposed by Howard Gruber, is a key aspect of that internal environment. Contextual biography conceptualizes the individual's life in terms of socialization and individuation, in terms of the subject's integration into particular contexts, and in terms of his or her construction of an original position within them. The study of socialization and individuation aims at a perception of the subject's uniqueness that takes into account the decisive role of context, the multiple relations among the intellectual projects that are the focus of scientific biography, the subject's other existential goals, and his o...

Massive questionnaires for personality capture

Abstract: Contemporary information technology facilitates the creation and administration of much longer questionnaires than was feasible traditionally. People might be motivated to respond to these questionnaires as a means of capturing significant aspects of their personalities, and this can be useful when designing sociable technology--computer avatars, software agents, and robots with simulated personalities-- and when creating personality archives for research or memorial purposes. In this article, the author illustrates how "personality capture" can be accomplished through 20,000 questionnaire items culled from responses to open-ended online questions, content analysis of existing verbal or textual material, and words from dictionaries, encyclopedias, and thesauri. This approach enables detailed idiographic study of a single individual, based on fresh measurement items and scales derived from the ambient culture.

The Journey to Jacob's Room: The Network of Enterprise of Virginia Woolf's First Experimental Novel

Abstract: The purpose of this article is to examine aspects of the early career of the English novelist Virginia Woolf, drawing primarily on Howard Gruber's (1974, 1989b, 1989c) approach to the understanding of creativity that views the individual as a unique "evolving system" engaged in a series of goal-directed activities. The various enterprises Woolf engaged in preceding the publication of her first experimental novel, Jacob's Room, in 1922 are detailed-including her early literary influences and activities, family background, "organization of affect" (Gruber, 1995, p. 400), development of expertise, and network of writing enterprises. The method utilized here was a blending of the idiographic account of Woolf's resolution of the problem she set for herself of re-forming the English novel (in a departure from the realism of, for example, Hardy, Austen, and Dickens) to capture the stream of human consciousness. This idiographic account and nomothetic findings of germane psychological research (e.g., ex...

Nomothetism and Understanding the Cambrian “Explosion”

Abstract: Steve Gould (1980), in his paper on the promise of paleobiology as a nomothetic evolutionary discipline, sets the nomothetic, the search for general rules or laws, against the idiographic, the detailed description of unique events. Gould (1980) notes that all idiographic events have nomothetic undertones. I agree, but go further. For me, unique events in the history of life not only have nomothetic undertones, but have nomothetic underpinnings. Here I outline these underpinnings for perhaps the most dramatic event seen in the fossil record, the Cambrian “explosion” of bilaterian animals. I am most interested in the rapid increases in disparity (e.g., the origin of the bauplane) and diversity, as well as why they started when they did. Before outlining the principles necessary for an understanding of the Cambrian “explosion” I briefly describe the classes of explanation typically invoked to account for the event. Most explanations center on one primary cause or trigger, usually a developmental, environmental, or ecological event or innovation. #### Developmental Explanations These point to the origin of the bilaterian developmental system, including the origin of the Hox genes, etc., as the primary cause of the “explosion” (Peterson and Davidson, 2000; Erwin and Davidson, 2002). While there is little doubt that the origin of the bilaterian developmental system was critical to the Cambrian radiation, this class of explanation doesn’t address the question of why the origin of such a system should, ipso facto, lead to increased diversity or disparity. In fact, if at least one Ediacaran is a bilaterian (e.g., Kimberella , Spriggina , Dickinsonia , or Arkarua ), then the bilaterian developmental system existed at least a few tens of millions of years prior to the Cambrian “explosion,” suggesting something more than a new developmental system is needed to account for the “explosion.” #### Environmental Explanations There has been a resurgence in …

IX—Freud's Own Blend: Functional Analysis, Idiographic Explanation, and the Extension of Ordinary Psychology

Abstract: If we are to understand why psychoanalysis extends ordinary psychology in the precise ways that it does, we must take account of the existence of, and the interplay between, two distinct kinds of explanatory concern: functional and idiographic. The form and content of psychoanalytic explanation and its unusual methodology can, at least in part, be viewed as emerging out of Freud's attempt to reconcile these two types of explanatory concern. We must also acknowledge the role of the background theoretical context that shapes Freud's functional thinking about the mind. A neglect of the role of the background theory in shaping the extension of ordinary psychology leaves us with puzzles about the nature and direction of the psychoanalytic extension and gives rise to an unbelievable history of psychoanalysis.

The fruitfulness of a nomothetic approach to investigating AAC: comparing two speech encoding schemes across cerebral palsied and nondisabled children.

Abstract: The observation that typical users of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems vary widely in their characteristics raises issues about the utility of a nomothetic approach for inve...

Teach me about your life: narrative approaches to lives, meaning, and transitions

Abstract: People like to tell stories about themselves, narrative accounts that impose a framework of meaning on the varied experiences that make up their lives. Such stories teach others about how they live or lived once upon a time. Research and scholarship on narratives of human behavior have long been accepted in sociology, anthropology, and, of course, literary studies. These qualitative approaches have been slower to take hold in psychology, though change is afoot and there is some openness to the methods (to be both fair and accurate, some narrative research has always been present in psychology, such as Vaillant’s pioneering interviews with men from the Grant Study of Adult Development; see Vaillant, 1995a,b). Many psychologists now view the study of personal narrative as a fruitful way to explore the richness of individual lives and adult development that cannot be captured through traditional experimental or rating-scale methods; the scope and detail inherent in stories of life defy checklists, personality inventories, or other surveys and questionnaires, even the subtlety of manipulation checks. Narrative methods encompass autobiographical research, psychobiography, life histories, the content analysis of personal stories, case studies, ethnographies, and the like-all approaches that emphasize “qualitative over quantitative research, hermeneutic over logical-positivistic frames, idiographic over nomothetic points of view, and inductive over hypothetico-deductive strategies of inquiry” (McAdams, Josselson, & Lieblich, 2001, p. xi). What implications do narrative approaches have for teaching about the self? In the first place, students rou-

But I'm not really bad: Using an idiographic versus a nomothetic approach to understand the reasons for difficult behaviour in children

Abstract: The number of students who are identified as experiencing behavioural difficulties in the mainstream school setting is growing. However, current efforts by teachers to address these behavioural difficulties are seriously limited because of lack of training in the procedures for assessing and working with difficult behaviour. This paper will argue that the apparent failure of traditional “behaviour modification” in producing positive changes in difficult behaviour lies in its prescriptive application of general strategies to specific student problems. This approach to behaviour change is ineffective because it is not based on an understanding of the reasons for difficult behaviour. The functional assessment framework for investigating and understanding student difficulties will be presented as a more efficient means of changing the behaviour problems that occur in the classroom. At the foundation of this framework is the assumption that meaningful and long-term changes to difficult behaviour can only result from teaching the student to behave differently rather than focusing on the elimination of problem behaviour.

A phenomenological study of the meanings of approaches to learning in higher education

Abstract: This study critically examines the meaning of approaches to learning in a Higher Education setting. In particular it highlights 'how' students leam by examining the way in which they approach their studies.The initial investigations into Approaches to Learning were conducted [in Sweden] by Marton and Saljo [during the sixties and seventies]. In their qualitative, phenomenographic work they attempted to discover the student experience of learning, focussing upon their approach to learning. Two key classifications of student's approach to learning were the outcomes of this research. These were deep level processing approach and a surface level approach. It was claimed that the approach used would affect the level of understanding obtained.This idiographic work was developed further by Entwistle and Ramsden (1983), however they directed the research in a nomothetic direction. The main outcome of their work was the Approaches to Studying Inventory (ASI) which according to these authors could quantitatively measure a student's predisposition to selected Approaches to Learning.The research approach adopted for this study does not however follow the nomothetic trend set by Entwistle and Ramsden, instead it attempts to develop the original work by Marton and Saljo by using an idiographic approach. The methodological approach used in this study is existential phenomenology (Merleau-Ponty, 1962) as this allows an examination of the learner as an individual. Further this approach facilitates a full description of the lived experiences so that a full insight into the lifeworld of the student may be presented. By adopting this alternate approach it is possible to develop the work of Marton and Saljo and enable a critique of the nomothetic approach used by Entwistle and Ramsden.The method used to enter the learner's lifeworld is qualitative interviews with six students studying in the Business School at the University of Derby. Each student was interviewed three times during the course of an academic year. The analytical procedure was guided by the rigours of a phenomenological methodology and a detailed profile of the individual lifeworld was formed. The Noesis-Noema distinction was also used as an analytical tool to summarise the meaning of learning for each of the participants.The findings from this phenomenological study demonstrated that approaches to learning is a complex and unique experience for each learner. The lifeworld descriptions of each student demonstrates this complexity, in particular it illuminates the inter-relationships which contribute to the individual complex nature of approaches to learning. Despite the individualistic nature of approaches to learning there were some issues that were common to the learners sampled. The themes were sociality and the student's approach to learning, learning as a support to wider needs, the meaning of learning and the student approach and what they do when trying to leam. All of these themes played a part in the meaning of approaches to learning for the students sampled.The phenomenological approach enabled an understanding of the complexity and individuality of approaches to learning by extricating the meanings of approaches to learning within the context of their lifeworld. The noema-noesis distinction proved invaluable as a heuristic device, identifying how the students 'approached' the 'object' of their learning. These findings highlighted the inadequacies of the ASI which is unable to elucidate the meanings and context of approaches to learning.This study demonstrates that if we want to understand the meanings and depth of approaches to learning then we must go beyond quantifiable variables, the nomothetic approach and instead focus on the individual's situation in life, the idiographic approach.

Applications of personality assessment

Abstract: In this chapter, we consider the practical utility of personality assessment. How can we use the information provided by a personality questionnaire to help the individual or society? Personality is assessed in a variety of different contexts, including clinical, educational and occupational settings. In the first two applications, the aims of the assessment are often idiographic. The aim is to understand the unique personal circumstances that contribute to mental disorder or problem behaviour in the classroom. Personality assessment using standardised questionnaires is typically an adjunct to less formalised investigation; the trait scores of the client are themselves interpreted on the basis of clinical judgement. As we have seen in chapter 11, the typical clinical approach to diagnosis may underestimate the nomothetic predictive power of traits. In industrial and commercial settings, by contrast, there is more interest in using trait measures as a direct basis for decision-making, especially in selecting job applicants, although personality may also be treated idiographically, in career counselling for example. This chapter is organised as follows. First, we review some principles of personality assessment, focusing on the applied issues confronting the practitioner: the choice of a trait questionnaire, evaluating the adequacy of questionnaires, and using trait information in professional practice. Next, we review clinical and developmental uses of trait assessment, before turning to organisational applications. We survey the validity of trait measures as predictors of performance and desirable behaviours in the workplace, supporting use of questionnaires in personnel selection.

Smoking and self-concept in young adults: an idiographic method of measurement

Abstract: An idiographic repertory grid method of measuring self-concept was used in a nomothetic design to study the relation between smoking behavior and four components of self-concept: real self, ideal self, social self, and ideal social self. Personal constructs were elicited from 32 smoker and 32 nonsmoker male and female college students. Differences between smokers and nonsmokers on all four components of self-concept supported the criterion-related validity of the measures. Implications were discussed for the assessment method and clinical practice.

IGDA. 9: Linking diagnosis to care ^ treatment IGDA. 9: Linking diagnosis to care ^ treatment planning

Abstract: formulation covering clinical disorders, disabilities, contextual problems and qualdisabilities, contextual problems and quality of life, as well as an idiographic or ity of life, as well as an idiographic or personalised formulation articulating the personalised formulation articulating the perspectives of the clinician with those of perspectives of the clinician with those of the patient and family on contextualised the patient and family on contextualised clinical problems, the patient’s positive clinical problems, the patient’s positive factors, and expectations about restoration factors, and expectations about restoration and promotion of health. and promotion of health.